Whenever I attend a conference or visit a classroom, I always learn a new tip or trick for using the awesome tools in Pixie or Wixie.   …

T his Saturday is one of my favorites of all year! First, it's May 4th, so I get to go around saying "May the Fourth be with you" to all and have them look at me like I'm a crazy Catholic off her pew.

AND it's Free Comic Book Saturday!!! Once a year, the independent comic book stores can sign up to participate and…

We recently did a cute project inspired by the books My Dog is as Smelly as a Dirty Sock and My Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil. The students had to pick a family member or classmate and then create their own simile portrait incorporating the objects they selected.

I'm not usually so good about posting projects but I happen to have the pictures and a few spare minutes :-)…

Today I recevied an email from one of our teachers in which he shared a project template he created for his students. He's a pretty new Pixie user, and he asked me for some feedback. Well, I can't give feedback unless I play, so I did! I explored the template's features, ease of use and the directions. When done, I…

Suitcase Story Resources (PDF) This download includes all pages shown below.

Parent…

Welcome to 2013! I hope you found the vacation refreshing and rejuvenating so you're ready to start the new year with extra energy.

I remember that in my old school., returning from Christmas break meant gearing up for the big state test. For many teachers that means no time for creativity because the…

One of the final questions asked last night really struck a chord with me during the Vice-President's debate. The question was about the negativity of the ads. Both sides of the campaign are guilty of running negative ads. My niece and I were talking about the ads the other day and we agreed that they all make us feel like we're about to enter a world similar to that seen in Hunger Games or that new show…

I wanted to encourage everyone to think about joining International Dot Day. If you aren't familiar with Peter Reynold's The Dot, it is wonderful book that tells the story of a caring teacher who reached a reluctant student in a very creative way.

September 15th(ish) is International Dot Day — a day for classes to explore the story’s powerful themes: bravery, creativity and self-expression. Pixie is…

I live about six miles from the west coast of Florida in a little town called Brooksville. This weekend, all eyes were on the tropical storm as it teased us with its potential path and how it could inflict pain on us. Heavy rains? Flooding? High winds? Tornadoes? On Sunday the schools decided to close to be safe. During Tropical Storm Debbie we had problems with flooding and then sink holes opening up. (Sink holes are always going to be an issue, just aggravated more by storms as heavy as a…

Today is "Plant a Flower Day", a sure sign that spring is in the air and just around the corner. Now personally, I've never been one with a green thumb. I killed the first plant in my classroom and one of my students made the comment, "I sure hope your teaching thumb is better than your gardening thumb. It's more brown than green and that's not good for the plant."

However, one can dream. So here's an idea to get you started:

Introduce the idea of a graden by reading Peter…

I know this guy that absolutely hates the font Comic Sans. He has signed to ban the font. My son and niece love it, but then they are both comic book readers. What do the two have to do with each other? Well Comic Sans was actually created in 1994 to imitate the historical look of comic book lettering. (This is according…

I host a "Pixie Party" annually for students. I usually target 1st and 2nd grade, as they are familiar with the software but still can delve deeper into the tools. It is part of our "Party Book" fundraiser where parents sign up for parties and the proceeds go to the school. As a matter of fact, this year's Pixie Party is tomorrow!

I do two 1-hour sessions with students. We create a "How To" project - storyboard, illustrate, record steps, then publish as a movie. DVD's are sent home…

Every Monday morning I wake singing that tune. I actually am one of the strange people, I love Mondays. They give you a chance for starting a new week with fresh ideas and new insight. You've destressed over the weekend, hopefully let go of work for a few hours, and are recharged and ready to go.

Well, maybe after that first shot of caffeine kicks in. Especially if you stayed up to watch the commercials during the Super Bowl, or the game itself.

I couldn't stay up that late. My…

This summer I attended the Constructivist Consortium in Philadelphia. I was very excited to attend, and even had my cousin drop me off an hour before it started. I didn't want to miss meeting new people or learning new things from peers. I was especially excited to learn from Sylvia Martinez of…

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Kristin Mccord's classroom at Roxborough Elementary School.  Her 1st grade students were using Pixie for the first time.  Krisitin demonstrated new tools to the entire class using the interactive whiteboard and the students would then try out their new skills by creating their own project.  They especially loved the "stretch" feature in Pixie and cheered in excitement as they explored this cool creativity tool. …

This morning I was reading an interesting blog post about Project Based Learning written by an educator that simply goes by the name Nev.

Nev's blogpost brings up some really good points on what is project…

My son is changing schools this September. His new school uses Pixie. That is not why we are switching him, but it’s something we are pretty happy about.

What we were not happy about is that they were not buying maintenance.

To me, that means we have not demonstrated the value of each new version. We have not proven to this group of educators that they want to make sure they get whatever the next version has to offer.

It means, with this…